College Football

Mercifully the Iowa Hawkeye football season has ended and I’m fairly certain we can all agree that 4-8 sucks.  I’ve covered the Kirk Ferentz thing as much as I care to at this point and since it doesn’t look like there is any sort of movement regarding the staff I’d like to talk about the silly season, it’s coaching carousel time in college football.  There are already quite a few big time jobs open, some medium sized jobs and other smaller jobs which I probably won’t talk about.  Here are some thoughts.

Auburn:  Fired Gene Chizik two years after he won a national championship, couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.  I’ve never been a Chizik fan, mostly because I think he’s arrogant and yes partly because he was ISU’s coach, but I also believe he cheated to win the national championship.  I have no proof and who knows if the NCAA will ever find any reason to strip Auburn of that national title but if they ever do it will surprise me as much as the day the NCAA strips Kentucky of their basketball championship under John Calipari.  Talk about “what have you done for me lately”, granted Chizik did just lead Auburn to the worst record ever two years removed from a national title and he went winless in the SEC but damn that’s a quick trigger.

Rumored replacements:  Come on this is so obvious who should get this job.  Bobby Petrino.  Auburn once tried to replace Tommy Tuberville with Petrino when he was at Louisville and this is a match made in heaven.  A guy who once left the Atlanta Falcons before completing his first year to the school that fired a national championship coach two years later, what could possibly go wrong?  This has to happen these two deserve each other.

Tennessee:  Fired Derek Dooley after three seasons after he replaced the one-and-done Lane Kiffin.  How bad has this job gotten that the obvious front runner David Cutcliffe chose to stay at Duke instead?  The good old days of Phillip Fulmer seem like a distant memory and that was only four years ago.

Rumored replacements:  They are lucky this is an SEC job and there are only 14 of those out there.  The usual suspects as far as SEC replacement coaches are Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart, Louisville head coach Charlie Strong and Arkansas St. head coach Gus Malzahn and these three should just get together and decide who gets which job.  My favorite rumor for Tennessee is Jon Gruden, I will be absolutely stunned if Gruden takes a college job.  Maybe it would be a good thing because his intense style might play better to guys that only have to put up with it for 4-5 years and then they are gone.  My question is does Gruden really want to put up with boosters?  Um…hell no.  Recruiting?  No way.  And this isn’t Tennessee 10 years ago you actually have to recruit and convince kids to come there now.

Arkansas:  Fired Bobby Petrino in the spring for his “spring fling” and hired John L. Smith who proceeded to take a preseason top 5 team and go 4-8.  Turns out that 10 month contract they gave Smith was two months longer than necessary.  Time to right the ship.

Rumored replacements: Gus Malzahn should be the first call and Charlie Strong should be the second or vice versa.  These two are options 1 and 1A first guy to say yes can have the job.  Gus Malzahn is a high school coaching legend in the state and won a national championship at Auburn as the offensive coordinator for Cam Newton.  He brings instant credibility in the state and stability because he would not be looking to go anywhere else.  Charlie Strong is from the state of Arkansas and has proven to be a fantastic coach not just as head coach at Louisville but also as a defensive coordinator at Florida.  The fallback option should these two turn it down should be UAB head coach Garrick McGee.

Kentucky: Wait I said I wasn’t going to talk about the smaller jobs. Next.

Purdue:  This is sort of a medium job.  They fired Danny Hope after he went 6-6 this year.  I never understood why they hired him in the first place.  Was it because he looked like a thinner version of Joe Tiller?  I think it was the mustache.  Here’s the thing, they hired Hope before Tiller left and made him the “coach-in-waiting” until Tiller retired, has this ever worked?  In the history of coaching has this ever panned out?   Is Jimbo Fisher at Florida St the best success story (the only success story) and they had to force Bowden out to get Fisher into the job so they didn’t lose him if I recall correctly.

Rumored replacements:  The most likely legitimate candidate is Northern Illinois’s Dave Doeren.  He was the defensive coordinator at Wisconsin before taking the Northern Illinois job so he knows the Big Ten.  The Boilermakers could do worse, oh yeah, they already have.  The dark horse for this job should be Fresno St. head coach Tim DeRuyter, he deserves a better job.  Also Michigan St. defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi should get a look.

California: Fired Jeff Tedford after 11 seasons.  Okay so he went 3-9, this guy built Cal football but everyone saw this coming.  Another “what have you done for me lately” firing except he never won a national title.  Tedford is the best coach Cal has ever had; seriously name another coach in Cal history.  Some team is going to get very lucky hiring Tedford to take over their program.

Rumored replacements:  Who wants this dead end job?  How about a couple of guys with dead end jobs in smaller conferences, Tim DeRuyter from Fresno St. or Mike MacIntyre from San Jose St.  Good luck gentlemen you have to compete with USC and a rejuvenated UCLA for the best California talent and your chief rival Stanford happens to be on a roll.

Colorado:  They fired Jon Embree, best career move ever…for him.  This job has turned into a black hole.  Supposedly their first call was to Air Force head coach Troy Calhoun, do yourself a favor Coach Calhoun hang up.

North Carolina State:  They fired Tom O’Brien and they apparently want James Franklin from Vanderbilt, NC State is not a step up from Vanderbilt at the moment. Hang tight Coach Franklin there will be a better opportunity for you than NC State.

Boston College:  Fired Frank Spaziani, maybe they should rehire Tom O’Brien.

There are other open jobs but I don’t really know anything about or care to know about UTEP, Idaho or whichever directional Michigan school’s coaching searches.  I do know that there are some good smaller conference head coaches like Gus Malzahn, Dave Doeren and Tim DeRuyter who deserve to move to major conference jobs.  There are up-and-coming coordinators like Kirby Smart and Mark Stoops who will get interviews and possibly job offers and there are guys like Charlie Strong and James Franklin that coach in major conferences but deserve a shot at big time schools.  I called this the silly season before because inevitably someone will make a move that is laughable.  Last year it was Arizona St. hiring Todd Graham to his fourth or so “dream job”, this year I can only hope it is Auburn hiring Paul Rhoads to replace Gene Chizik just so I can watch the Auburn faithful lose their minds.  It should be fun watching Colorado fumble around trying to get someone to take that job; I think Rick Neuheisel is available.  I hope Kentucky realizes they are an SEC job in name only and I hope good coaches realize that NC State, Colorado and California are not the premier jobs their Athletic Directors are making them out to be.  I love the ridiculous rumors, Gruden to any college job, Rex Ryan to Kentucky (yep I read that somewhere) Bob Stoops to Iowa (wait that’s more wishful thinking than rumor).  The funny thing about ridiculous rumors is that once in a while Charlie Weis actually takes the Kansas job.  Let the carousel spin.

Hawkeye Football

Fourteen years is a long time.  You can become a doctor in less than 14 years.  You can start grade school and graduate from high school in less than 14 years.  I’ve been out of high school longer than 14 years.  In 14 years the game of college football has changed and unfortunately Kirk Ferentz hasn’t changed with it.  I don’t want to disrespect the job Ferentz has done at Iowa, I was here when he took over and I know how far down the program was when Hayden Fry left and my final year in college was 2002 when Iowa won a share of the Big Ten title and played in the Orange Bowl.  I’ve seen the highs and the lows up close but even back in 1998 and 1999 this program wasn’t this low.  Back then there was a sense that things were going to get better, a new coaching staff, new players and an optimism that things could be turned around.  You won’t find any of that in Iowa City right now.  Fourteen years is a long time to coach in one place especially in today’s game.  The era of Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno coaching in the same place for decades is gone, like it or not that is reality.  Look around college football and Ferentz isn’t the only example of people itching for something new.  Mack Brown has been feeling the heat at Texas the last few years and even Bob Stoops at Oklahoma hears grumbling that things are stale in Norman and both of those guys have National Championships.  Blame it on the instant gratification society we live in today or the over blown sense of entitlement fans feel when they buy tickets to the games and donate money to the athletic departments, whatever the cause it is the sports world we live in.  I want Kirk Ferentz to go out on top but that just doesn’t seem realistic.  It is, however, equally as unrealistic to think the University of Iowa is going to come up with the $20 million it would take to buy out the remaining years of Ferentz’s contract and fire him after this abysmal season.  He’s going to get more time because the University is not going to fire a good man because of a bad season the real problem is that this season is becoming closer to the norm for the Hawkeyes than the two Orange Bowl seasons we have experienced in the past 14 years.  The issue I have with Coach Ferentz is that not only is he ultra-conservative in his approach but he refuses to evolve with the college game.  Offenses in college football are now run by coaches like Urban Meyer, Chip Kelly and Dana Holgerson, the spread offense is not a gimmick and it’s not going away.  It is the standard not the exception.  When Ferentz took over at Iowa the only coach that had heard the phrase “spread offense” was Joe Tiller and now the revolution has taken over and Ferentz is left in its wake.  Ferentz seems determined to prove himself right by sticking with a quarterback that is historically bad but I can tell you that if you can’t beat Purdue you probably aren’t going to beat Michigan or Nebraska.  Vandenberg was only a part of the problem against Purdue instead of the entire problem like the previous few weeks.  The defense has been a major disappointment the past few weeks after starting the season pretty well.  The defense lacks talent on the line and I’m fairly certain I’ve beaten that dead horse more than a few times in this blog.  Unfortunately poor line play on defense leads to tough days for the linebackers and asking too much of the secondary in coverage.  The struggles on the offensive side of the ball aren’t just about a lack of talent at quarterback and wide receiver (although those are huge problems) or the new offensive system.  It’s not just about poor decisions by the QB or the revolving door at RB.  It isn’t just about throwing a 2 yard pass on 4^th and 3.  It’s not just about punting with 4 minutes to go in a game when you haven’t demonstrated once that your defense can get you the ball back.  It is all of it.  I can go back to last season’s loss at Iowa St.  I know I don’t want to talk about it either but stick with me.  Iowa couldn’t stop Steele Jantz all game long and yet with the game tied and Iowa getting the ball back with about a minute and a half left in the game the Hawkeyes kneeled on it and played for overtime.  When asked why he didn’t try to score on the last possession Ferentz said he thought the defense had a good chance of stopping them and we could win in overtime.  What game was Ferentz watching?  The Hawkeyes couldn’t stop Jantz when they had 80 yards behind them why would he think giving Jantz the ball at the 25 was a good idea.  That was the beginning of the end for me with Ferentz.  I didn’t even know it at the time but I’ve come around to the fact that Ferentz just seems to be going through the motions.  Every press conference is the same coach speak regardless of the outcome of the game.  He seems oblivious to the most blatant problems and he refuses to even engage about them.  It is one thing as a coach to not throw your players under the bus but willful blindness is unacceptable.  The critics would say to me “How many college football games have you coached? What do you know?” and they are right I have never coached a football game but Kirk Ferentz has spent 14 years coaching in the Big Ten and it doesn’t seem to be doing him a whole lot of good at the moment.  As with any relationship if it is going to end ugly the best thing to do is end it quickly unfortunately I believe it is going to end ugly but not quickly.  I hope beyond hope that Kirk Ferentz has an epiphany during the offseason when he’s sitting at home over the holidays instead of going to a bowl game.  I hope he realizes that college football today has changed and he has to change with it or get out of the way.  Otherwise I hope that when his good friend Kansas City Chiefs GM Scott Pioli gets fired he lands a new job with a team that needs a coach and he calls up his old buddy Kirk Ferentz with an offer he can’t refuse.  Neither of these scenarios have a high enough likelihood to make me feel better.  Fourteen years may be too long to coach at one place and I’m afraid we are going to find out how bad year fifteen can be.